Israel Ties Abduction to Finding Airman

Israel said Saturday that it hopes its capture of a pro-Iranian guerrilla leader in a raid on his home in Syrian-controlled eastern Lebanon will provide a clue to the whereabouts of an Israeli airman seized in Lebanon nearly eight years ago after his plane was shot down.

Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos swooped into the Bekaa Valley before dawn Saturday and abducted Mustafa Dirani from his house in Qasr Naba, a village near the provincial capital of Zahlah, 10 miles from the Syrian border.

Dirani, 46, was head of the security apparatus of the Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia in 1986 when his men captured Ron Arad, whose plane was shot down during a bombing mission near the southern port city of Sidon.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said he hopes that Dirani will provide fresh information on the whereabouts of Arad--the only one of six missing Israelis believed to be still alive.

But the raid is also likely to harm recent steps toward peace with Syria, the main power in Lebanon. The operation came only days after Secretary of State Warren Christopher completed a shuttle trip trying to get Israel and Syria back to the negotiating table.

The pro-Iranian Hezbollah, or Party of God, vowed to step up its war against Israel in response to Dirani’s abduction.

“The enemy has resorted to the option of expanding the scope of confrontation,” the head of Hezbollah’s executive committee, Hussein Khalil, said in an interview. “This will put it (Israel) in a huge predicament in the future because the resistance in return will respond . . . in a way that adopts expanding the scope of fighting.”

Peres said the operation proved that Israel is intent on securing the release of Arad.

“First of all we will hear who he (Dirani) gave Ron to, because it is clear he held Ron for a long period. Our problem is how to reach an address. Where is he? In whose hands is he? This is one of the road signs that lead to this address,” Peres told Israeli army radio.

Peres defended the kidnaping, saying Israel was left with no other option after having attempted to win Arad’s release through diplomatic channels.

“The Israeli army should be praised for a very precise operation,” he said. “It removed a very dangerous man from a place from which he initiated many operations.”

The operation was ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and approved in a special Cabinet session Thursday, army radio said.

Pro-Iranian sources in Lebanon said Dirani handed Arad over to the Syrians after he fell out with Amal chief Nabih Berri in 1988. Israel says he is held by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah group or Iran, but Tehran has denied this.

Although Arad’s whereabouts remain a mystery, Israel has said it has convincing information that he is still alive.

Dirani, also known as Abu Ali, is leader of the pro-Iranian Believers Resistance guerrilla group. In 1988, he broke away from the moderate Amal and formed the Believers Resistance in close coordination with the fundamentalist Hezbollah.